4.  The applicant was born in 1941 and lives in Irkutsk.
5.  On 6 August 1996 the applicant brought a civil action against Ms B. contesting the will of her late husband made in favour of Ms B. Ms B. counterclaimed, seeking to annul the applicant’s title in her late husband’s flat.
6.  On 6 May 1998 the Sverdlovskiy District Court of Irkutsk dismissed the applicant’s claim and found for Ms B. On 30 December 1998 the Irkutsk Regional Court upheld that judgment on appeal.
7.  Further to the applicant’s complaint to a prosecutor’s office, on 17 May 1999 the Presidium of the Irkutsk Regional Court quashed the judgments of 6 May and 30 December 1998 and remitted the case for a new examination.
8.  On 23 December 1999 the Sverdlovskiy District Court of Irkutsk granted the applicant’s claim in full. The other party did not lodge an appeal and the judgment became final on 5 January 2000.
9.  On an unspecified date the president of the Irkutsk Regional Court lodged an application for supervisory review. On 1 August 2000 the applicant submitted her observations on the application.
10.  On 7 August 2000 the Presidium of the Irkutsk Regional Court quashed the judgment of 23 December 1999 and remitted the case for a new examination. It found that the first-instance court had failed to examine some of the applicant’s claims and had not elucidated discrepancies in witnesses’ testimony.
11.  On 14 February 2001 the Sverdlovskiy District Court of Irkutsk found for the applicant. It declared the will void and granted the applicant’s request for an extension of the time-limit for accepting the inheritance. Ms B.’s claim for declaring the applicant’s title void, was rejected.
12.  On 22 June 2001 the Irkutsk Regional Court upheld that judgment on appeal.
13.  On an unspecified date, acting on a complaint by Ms B., the President of the Irkutsk Regional Court introduced a new application for supervisory review.
14.  On 30 July 2001 the Presidium of the Irkutsk Regional Court granted the president’s application, quashed the judgments of 14 February and 22 June 2001 and remitted the case for a new examination. The ground for the quashing was the first-instance court’s failure to make good the procedural defects identified in the Presidium’s decision of 7 August 2000.
15.  On 30 September 2002 the Sverdlovskiy District Court of Irkutsk dismissed the applicant’s claims and found for Ms B. Assessing the evidence in the case, the District Court noted, in particular, that Ms L. Uglanova, resident in another city, had not appeared before the court but had submitted a written statement to that effect and explanations on the merits of the claim.
16.  On 27 December 2002 the Irkutsk Regional Court quashed the judgment of 30 September 2002 on procedural grounds and remitted the case for a new examination by the first-instance court.
17.  On an unspecified date Ms B.’s representative lodged an application for supervisory review with the Irkutsk Regional Court.
18.  On 7 April 2003 the Presidium of the Irkutsk Regional Court quashed the appeal judgment of 27 December 2002 and reinstated the first-instance judgment of 30 September 2002. It found that the first-instance court had implemented the previous decisions of the Presidium and correctly applied the civil- and family-law substantive provisions; in these circumstances, the appeal court had had no lawful grounds to quash its judgment.
19.  On 1 September 2003 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused the applicant’s request to institute supervisory review of the judgment of 7 April 2003.
20.  Throughout the proceedings the applicant lodged a considerable number of complaints about the excessive length of the proceedings in her case.
21.  She complained to the presidents of the Sverdlovskiy District Court of Irkutsk and of the Irkutsk Regional Court, to the Human Rights Commission of the Irkutsk Governor, to the Irkutsk Regional Judges’ Qualifications Board and the Supreme Judges’ Qualifications Board, to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, to the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk Region, to the Ombudsman and to the President of the Russian Federation.
22.  On 20 December 2000 the Irkutsk Regional Judges’ Qualifications Board requested the president of the Sverdlovskiy District Court to take measures to expedite proceedings in the applicant’s case “having regard to the fact that significant delays had already occurred”.
23.  On 24 January 2001 the Irkutsk Regional Judges’ Qualifications Board informed the applicant that non-compliance with procedural time-limits in her case had been objectively justified and the judge had not had personal interest in delaying the examination.
24.  On 22 January 2001 the Irkutsk Regional Court reported the case progress to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation which had made a request following the applicant’s complaint. The Regional Court wrote that delays had been caused by certain interested parties’ repeated failures to appear.
25.  On 26 June 2002 the Irkutsk Regional Court ordered the president of the Sverdlovskiy District Court to take measures for expedited examination of the applicant’s case.